The Believing- Chapter 7

Chapter 7- The Vicarage

So two days later, he found himself walking up the path of his vicarage on a fine summer's afternoon.

The meadow like garden that surrounded the vicarage in abundance looked especially colourful at this time of year. The Blue Irises standing tall and the Kaffir Lilly with their striking golden colour lit up the garden with a tranquil beauty.

In fact there was colour everywhere from the dark red of the Jewel Orchids that grow in the shade of the far wall, to the centre piece of the garden, the Jacaranda Roses, rich blue-pink in colour, which his elderly housekeeper Miss Flitter nurtured like they were the children she had never had, but always longed for.

And there in the background, looming tall and proud above everything else was his Church, the Holy Trinity of St. Mary, a majestic looking 14th Century building.

There had been a christian church on this site for over a thousand years and about were glimpses of earlier developments in the Gothic arches and friezes emphasising this Church having origins that stretched way back into the mists of time.

He felt an overwhelming sense of peace here and he found it easy to put all his recent troubles behind him as if they were merely a distant nightmare.

He had on purpose planned his unannounced return on the day his housekeeper went on her weekly trip to visit her bedridden older sister in the nearby hamlet of Thatcham.

For he hated fuss and bother, and just knew that Miss Flitter in her own kind hearted, yet immensely irritating, way would fuss incessively over him on his return.

And knew he would unkindly find it totally unbearable, so he intended to avoid that scene for as long as feasibly possible.

He was therefore surprised to find someone sat in the front room awaiting his arrival. It was Lady Margaret Hall, wife of the late Sir Johnson Hall, former General of her Majesty's Dragoons and hero of the Crimea war.

To say she was a widower seemed not to do her justice as that implied an elderly lady who was in the twilight of her years and who only beauty in her life were her rapidly fading memories.

Instead what was sat there before him was a woman in her mid- 30's who was at the peak of her beauty, every movement graceful and quite often those movements could be seen as purposefully very sensual.

She had married when still very young, a man 40 years her senior and who was on the verge of retirement before their marriage had even began.

Both had been regular patrons of the church and he had comforted her when her husband had died of gout the previous summer. Nothing serious had yet developed between them, but to both of them, the attraction between them was obvious and she often played off this.

She would often brush against him, giving him indiscreet looks and slowly leaning forward in tight corsets when only he was looking. He in return encouraged those flirtations. He would often casually place a hand on her knee when he was giving her one of her increasingly requested one to one Bible classes.

And once he had brushed crumbs from her dress when they were obviously not any there. All she did in response was murmur very softly and who knows where it all would have lead to if Miss Flitter had not entered at that moment with the afternoon tea .

So there they were alone and before he could say or do anything, she leapt to her feet sobbing and put her arms tightly around him, pulling him ever so close to her and saying in a highly emotional voice.

"John I was so worried, they said you had been hurt, I have been so worried my dearest" He could sense she was on the verge of hysteria, so he attempted to reassure and comfort her.

"It was nothing Lady Hall, just some flesh wounds that are almost fully recovered"

He felt her stiffen in his arms, as she reacted to him using such a formal address as 'Lady Hall'.

He corrected himself; "Anne...."

Using this time a far softer tone.

"I am fine, really I am. But how did you know of my return?"

She broke from his embrace and became more composed.

"My late husband had friends in the Home Office and when you did not return last week as scheduled, I made some enquires. It was then I heard that you had been attacked, by a drunken mad man they said."

He smiled wryly to himself, the story seemed to change each time it was told, soon there would be little left of what was the truth, but he saw no point in telling her the true story.

He thought it best let it all become part of the past and then it would all be quickly forgotten.

He sat her down and placed himself next to her, maybe a little too close than was proper. Their legs touching, but she did not seem to object. He could see the motion of her breathing as her tightly packed breasts started to rise up and down slightly quicker than they should and then he realised the cause. It was him.

His hand that he thought had been rested on her knee, had instead travelled up the inside of her dress and was forcibly rubbing the full length of her inner thigh.

Outside it became strangely dark, grey clouds sprung up in places where there were none moments before, blocking out the sunlight and long shadows grow suddenly all around the place.

She started to groan softly surrendering to long suppressed desire, she laid back on the couch, arching her back in response to his more intimate probings.

His fingers found the spot that they had been looking for and in moments she was writhing in ecstasy.

In one swift movement with his free hand, he more ripped than pulled at the top of her dress. The breasts that had moments before been tightly packed in, bursts out, exposing rapidly swelling, hardened tan coloured nipples.

Her groans of joy which were barely audible moments before were now louder and uncontrolled. He started to cover her breasts with savage kisses, before finally it took hold of him and he sank his teeth deep into the tender flesh of her left breast.

For a moment she resisted, she even tried to fight him off, then she willingly succumbed as he drank deep of her blood and she was now holding him lovingly to her breast as a mother would hold a feeding child, softly caressing his hair until she was too weak to do so any longer and then she lapsed into unconsciousness.